A GARDEN DIARY 181 



undecided. In the case of a little Portuguese 

 relative, one Drosophylum lusitanicum (growing, 

 unlike other members of the family, upon dry 

 hills in the neighbourhood of Oporto) such a 

 power appears undoubtedly to exist, the people 

 of the neighbourhood using it as a flycatcher, 

 and hanging it upon their walls for that express 

 purpose. 



This meat-eating habit or instinct (whichever 

 we may agree to call it) is shared to a greater or 

 less extent by all the Droseraceae, such as the 

 Venus's fly-trap, the Byblis gigantea of Australia, 

 and a small but curious aquatic cousin, known to 

 botanists by the formidable name of Aldrovanda 

 vesiculosa, whose tiny leaves have the power of 

 shutting vice-like over every unfortunate insect 

 which approaches them, and which thus finds 

 itself enclosed in a floating prison. If eminently 

 characteristic of them, this carnivorousness is by 

 no means confined however to the sundews, and 

 their allies. If anything the Pinguiculas, for in- 

 stance, rather exceed them in voracity. Few 

 plants are at once so beautiful, and so interesting 

 from the problems to which their distribution 

 gives rise, as is the great Irish butterwort 

 Pinguicula grandiflora. Unknown to England 

 and Scotland ; unknown to the whole north of 

 Europe; unknown even to the rest of Ireland; 

 its viscid green rosettes may be seen on most of 

 the lowlands of Kerry, and upon many of the 



